pood
Veteran Member
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- Oct 25, 2021
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Someone else here (I believe it was Swammerdami) mentioned, in some context, Julian Barbour’s time capsules. I read his book The End of Time years ago, but no longer have the book. I still don’t quite feel I have grasped Barbour’s position. I understand the Minkowski block universe position that all moments in time exist in the same way all locations in space exist, and what we call “now” is an indexical.
Barbour denies that there is any time dimension at all, and claims all that exists are “nows” or “time capsules” in configuration space. We infer, falsely it would seem on his model, that there was a past, because our particular time capsules encode “records” of it, but if the past does not actually exist, it seems those “records” would have to be illusory, since there was no past according to Barbour’s metaphysics!
OTOH he speaks of “mutually consistent records,” so maybe he means all NOWS exist, including what we call “past” NOWS, in configuration space, so what we call the past definitely “happens” in these other Nows relative to us. But if that is what he means, how would that be any substantively different from the Minkowski block world?
In any event, Barbour also argues that the universe is completely static, and motion and change are an illusion, and it seems if that is right it would put an end to determinism and causality as well, rendering both as illusory. But then again many have said the same thing about the block universe.
Does anyone know enough about this to untangle my confuzzlement?
I put this in Natural Science because Barbour is a physicist, though his ideas strike me as mainly metaphysical. But then again, I don’t recognize a clear distinction between science and metaphysics, so there is that.
Plus, the man has a web site and an email, so maybe, if a discussion here ensues, I will simply invite him to join us.
Barbour denies that there is any time dimension at all, and claims all that exists are “nows” or “time capsules” in configuration space. We infer, falsely it would seem on his model, that there was a past, because our particular time capsules encode “records” of it, but if the past does not actually exist, it seems those “records” would have to be illusory, since there was no past according to Barbour’s metaphysics!
OTOH he speaks of “mutually consistent records,” so maybe he means all NOWS exist, including what we call “past” NOWS, in configuration space, so what we call the past definitely “happens” in these other Nows relative to us. But if that is what he means, how would that be any substantively different from the Minkowski block world?
In any event, Barbour also argues that the universe is completely static, and motion and change are an illusion, and it seems if that is right it would put an end to determinism and causality as well, rendering both as illusory. But then again many have said the same thing about the block universe.
Does anyone know enough about this to untangle my confuzzlement?
I put this in Natural Science because Barbour is a physicist, though his ideas strike me as mainly metaphysical. But then again, I don’t recognize a clear distinction between science and metaphysics, so there is that.
Plus, the man has a web site and an email, so maybe, if a discussion here ensues, I will simply invite him to join us.